You've spent months at a time on icebreakers in the Arctic. What's life like up there?
It's a fascinating landscape. You feel like this is an area where you don't belong – but it's beautiful. When sunlight hits the ice it glitters, and when the ship breaks the ice, the chunks flip and underneath there are sometimes fish or other animals. There are snow flowers that form on top of the ice. It almost feels like a different planet.
What are you looking for when you are there?
I'm interested in the deep sea. We have tried hard to produce high-quality images that show that the Arctic Ocean isn't a dead ocean. There's actually a lot of life on the sea floor.
I understand that there's a decent amount of biomass but not a huge amount of diversity...
Yes, and that always intrigued me. This is an ocean covered by a lid of ...
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